1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to the field of information handling systems. More specifically, but without limitation, the present disclosure relates to flash memory.
2. Background Information
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is an information handling system. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for such systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling systems (IHSs) may use persistent onboard storage to store various system data, such as system configuration data, UEFI variables, error logs, performance monitoring logs and the like. Storage of this information may be provided by system firmware or basic input-output system (BIOS) using defined application programming interfaces (APIs). This data is persistent and is needed to be preserved when power to an IHS is discontinued such as during a boot or shutdown. Therefore, such data needs to be saved to onboard non-volatile memory, commonly in the form of system flash memory.
Writing data to any flash memory device or system, however, may be a time consuming process. In some instances, the process of writing data to flash memory may require at least 5 to 7 microseconds (ms) for writing each byte of data. Therefore, writing such data to flash may take considerable time depending on the size of the data. Thus, a need exists for methods, apparatus and media for improving data write speed to flash memory.